GEOPHYSICAL SURVEY SHOWS NEW STRUCTURES AT STANTON DREW

Archaeologists have found the remains of a prehistoric ceremonial site which
has been described as the biggest in Britain. English Heritage officials
say it is as old as Stonehenge, although twice as large.

Traces of the temple, in well-defined pits, were found at village of Stanton
Drew, near
Bristol,
in the centre of the largest of the existing stone circles. Interestingly
Sir Jocelyn Stevens, Chairman of English Heritage suggested that the structure
was built as a "symbol of power" by people seeking to control the supernatural
- a very high-profile affirmation of the site's likely ritual use.

Dr Geoffrey Wainwright, English Heritage's chief architect, described the
discovery as the most significant in British pre-historic archaeology in
30 years. He explained: "We have about 3,000 stone circles in Britain but
previously only seven timber temples. The Stanton Drew
find is by far the largest, twice as big as anything previously discovered,"
he said. The
site
was found by using magnetic field ground scanning equipment to plot the extent
of the buried structure. Dr Wainwright said that previous excavations at
sites such as Woodhenge and Durrington Walls, both near Stonehenge, had shown
that the pits once held massive posts. "It is a strong possibility that this
was the case at StantonDrew. But here the circles are more numerous and their
size is much greater than at the other sites."